1. Field of the Invention
The present invention pertains to binuclear metal macrocyclic and macrobicyclic complexes for oxygen separation and transport.
2. Description of the Background
In 1982, Motekaitis et al discovered that the dicobalt complexes of BISDIEN (1) and OBISTREN (2) exhibit an oxygen-carrying capability. The uncomplexed ligands have the formulas: ##STR1##
Unfortunately, the potential usefulness of these two complexes has been greatly limited by the expensive multistep process used for their preparation.
More recently, Lehn et al introduced a synthetic method for the preparation of macrocyclic ligands analogous to BISDIEN and OBISTREN However, the processes of Motekaitis et al and Lehn et al have only been used to synthesize a very limited number of ligand compounds, most of which are Schiff base compounds and not polyazamacrocycles or cryptands.